“Mobile first” is more than screen size

When I was first introduced to “mobile first” as a web design principle, I thought it meant sketching designs for a small, narrow screen. I was proud when I had internalized the philosophy enough to create my first mockup file in “iPhone 6” size rather than desktop width.

But “mobile first” goes much deeper than that.

Mobile devices behave differently than desktops in all the ways we normally take for granted. Bandwidth, file upload behaviour, image manipulation, interactions with buttons, hovering on objects (or not), visibility of elements when a hand is covering most of the screen, etc. Everything changes.

Mobile and touch-screen browsing continues to grow, is your website growing with it?